The GVO has a comprehensive and flexible 'Skills Audit/Matrix' feature that allows governing boards to look at the skills available on the board and to identify areas that need strengthening. This can be done by additional training or recruitment.
As a 'starter for ten' GVO comes with a pre-installed 'Skills Matrix' is based upon the NGA (National Governors' Association) model (May 2020 version for older GVOs and September 2021 version for GVOs installed since that date) but the categories and questions can be configured locally/updated to meet the specific needs of your school or college - you can choose to use the pre-loaded categories and questions or create your own - the system is VERY flexible.
The 'Matrix' is built up from a series of 'Categories' and each Category has a series of questions. The categories and questions can be moved to the order you require. Each Governor answers each of the questions using a scale of 1-5 (or n/a). A score of 1 indicates little or no knowledge and a score of 5 indicates strong expertise.
A comprehensive colour coded reporting tool (see below) analyses the responses from all the members on the Board (or Trust) and displays both a summary and a detailed report which allows the board to see the strengths and weaknesses. Reports can be run for individual boards or across the whole Trust (for a MAT). There are options to run the reports with certain people missing to see the impact that has.
Below are links to the sections of the help database to help your local GVO Manager to set up the categories and questions, users to add/edit their responses and how to generate the comprehensive reports for storage, export or printing.
SETTING THE MASTER DATA - CATEGORIES AND QUESTIONS
ADDING/UPDATING YOUR RESPONSES
ADDING THE RESPONSES FOR SOMEONE ELSE (GVO Manager only)
FULL UPDATE OF THE SKILLS AUDIT CATEGORIES and QUESTIONS
UPDATING THE 'DATE COMPLETE' AND RESPONSES FOR USERS
If you need any help with setting up and using this feature in GVO please contact the GVO support desk on 01273 921066.